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For my honors thesis, I chose to write a short story in order to assess my abilities as a writer and to decide whether I wanted to pursue an MFA after I graduated. Ever since my first chapter book in the third grade (Little House on the Prairie), I was inspired and believed I wanted to be a writer. In this way, the thesis has been successful as it has illuminated both the limitations and advantages of my writing. It has also revealed that I do not want to make a career out of writing, but rather would prefer to write solely as a hobby. Of course, I would never have come to this conclusion if I had not experienced the writing process throughout its various stages.
As an English major who has spent several years analyzing what makes good literature, it was difficult to lay all of that aside when writing my own story. I would compare my work to that of my favorite writers—William Faulkner, Stephen King, Edgar Allen Poe, and Flannery O‟Connor—and feel frustrated that I was not producing something of the same caliber. By no means was this because I felt my writing to be as good but rather I had seen what the end product should look like and strove to reach it. The discrepancy between what I envisioned and what I created was a source of intense frustration for me, and perhaps it was a limiting factor in the writing process. Because I was so focused on the outcome, I did not let my story grow organically. My characters were predetermined and so they could not develop on their own. Another limitation I encountered was my inconsistency in writing. I understood that a successful writer must practice writing on a daily basis and that was something I struggled to do. It was for this reason that I ultimately realized I did not have the discipline to make writing a career, at least not at this point in time. However, I did discover some advantages to my writing.
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My ability to recognize what my story lacked allowed me to continue moving forward throughout the revision process. I understood early on the necessary elements for storytelling and so I was sure to include those elements in my story. Also, my ability to re-envision my story allowed me to approach problems in my story from different angles.
I based my decision to write a short story on the rationale that one must first master the short story before one can proceed to the novel. I believe that the short story provides the best medium for practicing the elements of storytelling. Furthermore, I wanted to keep the thesis short and manageable and a collection of short stories or even a novella would have been too much for me to focus on over the course of a year.
As far as the content goes, I wanted to write about something I could relate to and believe in. Initially, the story was going to explore the question of whether to have children or not, but when it came to starting my thesis, I could not decide what the answer should be. After continuing to struggle over the content, I eventually settled on writing a story based on a news article from CNN. The article was about a Texas mayor who killed her 19-year-old daughter and then killed herself. My first draft of my thesis explored this scenario and sought to find out why a mother would kill her child. Ironically, my first draft was very different from what I had first envisioned and very different from my final draft. In fact, most of my drafts were drastically different from the previous ones. I would completely rewrite sections that I felt did not work, and it was not until my sixth draft that the elements I wanted fell into place. My final draft was a byproduct of eight revisions and a year‟s worth of study and research, and, overall, was successful.

Access

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Degree

B.A.

Degree Program

English

Department

Department of English

Thesis Advisor

Kutcha, Jennifer A.

Advisory Committee

Kutcha, Jennifer A.; Steeby, Elizabeth A.; Johnson, Edward R.

Date Degree Awarded

2011

Rights

The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis.

Notes

22 leaves; 29 cm.; typescript; "An honors thesis... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of English, with University Honors and Honors in English"; Thesis (B.A.)--University of New Orleans, 2011; Includes bibliographical references (leaf 21); May 2011; approved May 3, 2011.